


Honey please, please come through

by DreamingOfABetterYou



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't trust auras y'all, Handwavy Anathema magic, Lack of Communication, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-06-25 11:38:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19744981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingOfABetterYou/pseuds/DreamingOfABetterYou
Summary: In which Aziraphale desperately wants to know if a certain demon loves him back, and things go quite terribly downhill from there before they get better.





	1. Give me a boost over Heaven's Gate

**Author's Note:**

> It's angst. It's communication failure. It's not Maybelline but I hope it's what you came for.  
> For now, it's only a bit of exposition, but hey. Absence makes the angst grow stronger.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (Title is from Heaven's Gate by Fall Out Boy, cause that song (the entire MANIA album, really) has been haunting be for the last WEEK.)

“Anathema, my dear!” The woman in question raised her head from where she was currently crouching behind a hedge, fighting the righteous fight against some weeds in her front garden. The angel waved nonsensically – since she had clearly already seen him – and walked quickly towards her. Straightening, she returned his beaming smile and kissed him on the cheek as he leaned in to do the same.

“Oh, hello, Aziraphale. Is it Thursday already?” They had started getting together quite regularly for a mix of card games, gossip and book recommendations over a good and strong Earl Grey since the Notpocalypse, but she really thought it was only Monday…

“No, don’t worry, I just popped in spontaneously.” The angel was practically vibrating on the spot where he stood, hands wringing nervously. She put a gently hand on top of his to still them, and led them inside with a cock of her head.

It was only when they were both settled in her living room, each a steaming cup of tea cradled between their palms, that she spoke again.

“Aziraphale, are you alright?”

The angel smiled, but it was brittle around the edges, and his voice was a bit hysteric when he spoke. “Splendid! Absolutely tip-top, really.”

“…Okay.”

Aziraphale sighed, putting down the tea and rubbing a hand through his curls, clearly impatient with himself. “I was just wondering…if you could help me with something. A tiny thing, really, from what I heard from Adam.”

“What is it?” Anathema leaned forward a bit, now properly intrigued on what he could possibly want.

“He said you could see auras. And well, now I was…”

She made an inquisitive sound when his words just fumbles off into nothing. “You want me to read your aura?”

“Not quite. I once read in this delightful first edition – it was gorgeous, really, dark brown goat leather as a cover, and gilded around the edges; quite decadent, of course, for an occultist book which is bound to be used to stabilise a kitchen table, but that can’t be helped, can it…”

“Aziraphale!” Anathema huffed. She usually enjoyed his rambling, but clearly, there was some deeper issue here.

“Sorry. I read that…some people, when they can read auras, might be able to read feelings as well.”

Well, _now_ it was getting interesting.

“I see.”

Aziraphale hadn’t noticed her change in tone, apparently, too busy to again torture his hands by trying to strangle them with the other, pretty blue eyes fixed on his lap where they struggled. “And I know it’s a terrible thing to ask of you, with all the issues of consent and privacy in play, but I just really…”

“You want to know if Crowley loves you back” Anathema interrupted warmly.

“…Am I that obvious?” the angel mumbled in a small voice, lips curved in the most charmingly little self-conscious smile, but the look in his eyes was heart-breaking, all hesitant and doubtful.

Anathema willed her smile to be as convincing and positive as humanly possible; clearly, the angel had a thick skull. “I can tell you without reading it that he loves you. Has loved you for ages, possibly. I thought you were married when you took me home in his car, you know” she ended with a chuckle.

Aziraphale flushed right to the roots of his hair. “Did you? Oh. Oh, well. We’ve been friends for so long, the familiarity…”

Anathema waved her hand; such excuses wouldn’t do. “Why are you so afraid? Why not just talk to him?”

“Because I would rather only be his friend than lose him forever” Aziraphale blurted; it was clear that those words had been hiding right beneath his tongue, impatient to be let out like a young dog. “I wouldn’t…I…I couldn’t bear it.”

“Oh dear” Anathema sighed, leaning over the small table and gently squeezing Aziraphale’s forearm to offer some comfort at least. “Well. I don’t usually do it for the exact same reasons that you said, but…I guess there’s no harm if it helps finally getting the two of you together.”

The angel perked up instantly, and Anathema could have sworn the room lit up as well, golden light suddenly flickering through previously shadowy nooks and crannies. “Oh, thank you!”

They agreed to have Anathema…have a closer look at Crowley – she didn’t want to call it spying, even in her head, because Aziraphale apparently saw something on her face when she thought of it that made him incredibly twitchy and guilty-looking – when they were supposed to next meet up at the Young’s house on Sunday for a classic roast lunch. It had been something of a newly-developed practice to have everybody over at the house where the no-longer-Antichrist lived, even if Adam’s parents didn’t quite know when exactly their son had made such strange friends.

Anathema would just confirm Aziraphale's hopes of Crowley returning his feelings and they could finally drive off into the sunset in that terribly environmentally-hostile Bentley of his.

What could go wrong, after all?


	2. The things that you do in the name of what you love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Church" by Fall Out Boy.  
> That album owns my soul.

Anathema smiled gently when she walked into the room after Mrs Young; the children were rambling amongst themselves over a conspiracy that somehow involved an old man’s dachshund while Mr Young looked on fondly. Shadwell (he had retired his witchfinder titles after moving into that delightful little cottage with Miss Tracy) was viciously stirring mounds of sugar into the delicate little china tea cup, pretending not to hear the conversation of said Miss Tracy and Crowley about the respective advantages of floggers vs canes. Apparently, Crowley’s ex-side had played a major role in commercialising BDSM; Anathema couldn’t say she was surprised. (She also knew, however, that the implementation of safe words into the practice had been Crowley’s part in the matter, which had been, for lack of a better word, really quite sweet of him.)

Her gaze swept over to Aziraphale and she wanted to melt instantly; with such open adoration and enjoyment was he watching Crowley gesticulate and exclaim, seemingly lost to the world around him. Every few moments, Crowley would turn towards him to tease him gently about this or that.

“Well, here goes nothing” she mumbled under her breath and closed her eyes for a second to feel the room, to channel her energy into what she needed, what she wanted to know, before she opened them again.

The love was everywhere.

There was the gentle, light-green shimmer of Wensleydale’s excitement about contributing a clever point to his favourite people in the world, the fierce magenta of Pepper’s love for her idiot boys who would, in three years’ time, be irrevocably devoted to her every move – in a purely platonic way, thankfully – if they hadn’t been so already. The lulling dove grey of Mrs Young who had a quite bountiful affection for the rag-tag bunch of characters because they had, for some reason, somehow saved her son’s mental health and maybe also his life, and the sparkling champagne of Miss Tracy whose affection was freely given to every person she met, no matter the circumstances.

Smiling, she turned to Aziraphale to let herself be warmed by his love; it seeped out of his every pore even when she wasn’t consciously concentrating on seeing love and affection, pure golden light dripping everywhere he went. It would have made sense, she guessed, as he was a being of love, literally made to love humanity and everything that came with it, but she had seen nothing of the sort when she came across Gabriel on the airfield. She had never told Aziraphale, for risk of making him stutter and redden in embarrassment, but kept that part close to her heart; her very own little angelic secret.

He caught her eye, blue eyes sparkling with mirth at whatever nonsense Crowley had just proclaimed – whatever it was, it made Miss Tracy cackle and Shadwell mutter into his tea irritably while his ears were getting redder by the second, so it must have been quite scandalous – and nodded at her in greeting. The demon next to him, completely attuned to what the angel was doing at any given point in time, turned to face him at Aziraphale’s movement and then followed his eye line to Anathema, raising a hand in a casual hello before letting his arm fall over the back of Aziraphale’s chair, long fingers threateningly close to skimming the angel’s shoulders.

Why Aziraphale even needed confirmation, she didn’t know.

She focussed on Crowley, bracing herself to be blinded quite like she had been when she first read Aziraphale’s love – quite by accident, she just wanted to know how far that sunlight of his reached – and felt…

Nothing.

There was absolutely nothing.

Anathema frowned, reconfigured her senses, so to speak, and tried again.

Nothing. Not a flicker, no glow of affection, no soft whisper of a gentle thought. He was a black hole of nothingness, like he had never felt anything good in his life, for anyone.

It didn’t make any sense, she thought, but then again she had never tried to read a demon before. Maybe...Maybe Aziraphale had been right to question it, and wasn't that just a heartbreaking thought?

Her face must have portrayed the shock and confusion that she felt, the pain of knowing that she'd have to tell him, because the next movement that she saw was from Aziraphale himself. He was suddenly as white as a sheet, with hectic red spots high on his round cheeks, and moved back his chair as he stood, making Crowley tumble off the back of it without seeming to notice much at all.

“I’ll…see you all another time. I’m very sorry” he mumbled to nobody in particular, eyes glued to the floor, and moved towards the front door hastily. Anathema caught his arm when he tried to squeeze past her. “Aziraphale…”

“It was foolish, really. So sorry for your troubles.” His eyes were wet with tears when he met her gaze, anguished and yet resigned, as if he hadn't quite given into his wildest hopes, his jaw tight with the strain of not letting his lower lip tremble. Somehow, he still managed the decency to pat her shoulder before he quite literally dashed out, door closing behind him with a thoughtless slam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY Y'ALL I'LL MAKE IT RIGHT I PROMISE


	3. I miss the days when I pretended with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the support and lovely, lovely feedback this fic has been getting, it's been an absolute joy for me!!!!!  
> Chapter title is from Fall Out Boy's Wilson (Expensive Mistakes).
> 
> Just a heads up, Crowley doesn't like himself very much in this one...

_“It was foolish, really. So sorry for your troubles.” His eyes were wet with tears when he met her gaze, anguished and yet resigned, as if he hadn't quite given into his wildest hopes, his jaw tight with the strain of not letting his lower lip tremble. Somehow, he still managed the decency to pat her shoulder before he quite literally dashed out, door closing behind him with a thoughtless slam._

* * *

Anathema turned back towards the people in the room, most of whom were looking quite confused themselves. Except for Crowley, Crowley with a face like a thundercloud, dark and threatening and looming with no good things in mind. When he rose, she imagined she could hear the electricity of lightning fizzling as he stalked towards her with an accusing finger raised.

“You” he hissed, now nearly nose-to-nose with her, “why would you do that?”

“Do what?” she sputtered. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You think I didn’t feel you poking around in my…my heart?” His face did something complicated and painful-looking, his voice wavering, and if Anathema wouldn’t have been a bit afraid for her life, she might have given into the temptation of reaching out to comfort him. “I’m sure it has all been _very_ hilarious to all of you” he was now yelling with his arms stretched out, facing the congregation – he had always been quite dramatic, after all – “but now it seems your game is over. Did you make a bet? _Let’s see when Aziraphale figures it out, let’s see how long he can stand being around that disgusting snake after he knoooows_ ” he sing-songed nastily, every letter dripping in disdain. “Whatever it was about, congratulations to the winner. I hope you all go to…”

“Crowley!” Anathema exclaimed desperately. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, I swear. It was just, Aziraphale wanted to know, and I thought, well, how bad could it be?”

The demon staggered back as if someone had shot him again – but not with a paintball, this time. One of his hands grabbed the back of a chair for support, and he leaned heavily on it; the creak of the wood was loud in the suddenly dead-silent room. “It…It was _him_? He wanted to know? And then he just left?” he ended in a miserable whisper, curling into himself slightly as if he was looking to protect the few soft spots he had still left.

“You have to understand, Crowley, he…he wanted it to be different” Anathema said softly, throat tightening at the display of Crowley trying to keep a brave face but very much failing in that; his mouth was twitching, his jaw locked completely as if there was a miserable howl hiding right behind his teeth, but he'd be damned – ha! – if he were to let it escape. “Give him some space, maybe, so he can figure out where you two should go from here.”

It was silent, for a short moment, before Crowley spoke again. His voice was brittle and careful, like walking on ice in old tennis shoes. “He told you he didn’t want this?”

“He asked me to find out for him. He was scared to talk to you because he didn’t want to lose you” she insisted softly, hoping it would be the right thing to say.

It wasn’t.

“Lose me? LOSE ME? He’s always the one who leaves, who rejects, who hurts. Not me!” Crowley hissed, poking himself into the chest quite viciously. “I wanted to go to Alpha Centauri with him because I couldn’t bear to be parted from him for even one day more than necessary. I asked him to let me help him, and he refused. It’s been painfully obvious what I feel for him, has been for centuries!”

Someone – possibly Shadwell – whistled lowly at the admission. Anathema felt all the colour drain from her face.

“…You love him” she whispered, like it was still a secret.

Crowley scoffed and crossed his arms, baring his teeth as if the thought pained him. “Of course I bloody love him! That’s why he left, isn’t it? Because he can’t bear the thought of being sullied by a demon, of being compromised, of being befouled by a disgusting, obscene, lowly creature who can only…”

“ _Crowley_ ” Miss Tracy interrupted with a rare taste of absolute dominance in her voice. “There are children in here. Take your mouth somewhere where they’re not if you’ll continue with this nonsense.”

Crowley was panting like an overworked race horse, trembling on the spot like he would shake apart at the next second. Nobody in the room dared to breathe into his direction for fear of making him crumble.

“Go find him” Mrs Young gently suggested, after a horrendously still minute. “I think whatever you need to work through, you need to work through it with him, and him alone.” She didn’t quite understand all the talk about snakes and stars, but maybe that’s just how dating worked these days: elaborate metaphors and dramatics in your acquaintance’s parents’ house.

“They’re right, Crowley” Anathema said quietly, most of her energy drained by the knowledge of how much pain she had caused, “I promise you, it’s not what you think. He never would have done anything to hurt you willingly. You know that.”

Crowley shrunk back from her words, wrapping his arms even tighter around himself in a heartbreaking shadow of comfort. “He said that it was over, before everything on the airfield.”

His mouth was a sharp-edged grimace, and if they could have seen his eyes, they would have surely been full of pain, judging by the furrow of his brows. He spat out a cold laugh.

“He knew how I felt, and didn’t want anything to do with it.”

Anathema shook her head insistently. “When he came to me, he wanted to know if you loved him back. Not if you loved him. If you loved him _back_.”

Crowley stood still for a moment – not breathing, not moving, even the tightening of his jaw stopped – before he took a shuddering breath in and let his shoulders drop in a massive effort to unclench; his muscles nearly moaned out loud in relief.

“Impossible.”

“I swear on my life” Anathema reassured him, not knowing if her life was of any value to him, after what she had caused, but it was the only thing she could offer him in that moment. “Go to him, and make it right.”

His jaw clenched and unclenched rhythmically, and his whole body was still as tense as a coiled spring. In the end, after a few more seconds of violent silence – not even Dog dared to move a muscle – Crowley ripped himself away and stormed out with a dedicated look on his face.

“Well, that went about as well as could have been expected” Mrs Young mumbled, flinching when the door rattled in its hinges from being slammed yet again. (The door wasn’t having the best of all days, really.)

Brian, who had been silent – and, to be honest, cowering behind Pepper – the entire time now spoke up: “Wait, so they’re not married?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.


	4. If there were any more left of me (I'd give it to you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're done!!!! Thanks for all the support and the lovely comments and theories and yelling about their idocy; I love you all very much. Hope you enjoy the resolution of this little thing :)
> 
> (Chapter title from Fall Out Boy's Heaven's Gate)

Crowley cared very little about social convention, which is why he had absolutely no qualms in yelling Aziraphale’s name through the tiny streets of Tadfield as soon as he exited the Young’s house.

“Aziraphale, where are you?” he screamed, trying desperately not to think of the last time he had searched for Aziraphale and found nothing but flames and pain and cinder and smoke, but heart clenching all the same.

“Angel, please!” An old man walking a small dog nearby threw Crowley a nasty look at how loud he was being in their sleepy area – and during midday hours as well, which were reserved for naps and crosswords and at the very most some gentle hedge-snipping if one felt adventurous – but shrunk back into his plaid felt jacket when Crowley bared his teeth at him in a snarl. He hurried down the street, nearly taking the dachshund of his tiny feet, and at first Crowley hissed after them indulgently, before his thoughts caught up to him and the noise died in his throat quite pathetically, ending in a light, tear-heavy wheeze.

“This is why he could never love you” he scorned himself in a low and hateful voice, “you nasty, ugly…”

“Crowley.”

The demon whirled around on the spot, and every self-hating thought he had vanished instantly. Every thought in general, really.

Aziraphale looked…well, he looked like he had been through hell. Not literal Hell, of course, he had looked a bit shaken but other than that quite normal after his stint there, but he looked like what humans mean when they said it. His eyes were glassy and a bit red – but not in the fun way like they had been in the 60s, sometimes – and his mouth was shaped into a heart-breaking downward curve. Crowley wanted nothing more than to reach out and nudge up the corners of his mouth with a fingertip, if only to make him laugh at the nonsensicalness of it, but balled his hand into a tight fist as his brain reminded him that thoughts like those were what had gotten them into that mess in the first place.

“Aziraphale, I can explain, I swear!” he explained desperately.

“What if I don’t want you to explain?” Aziraphale replied, suddenly sounding absolutely exhausted.

“But, angel…”

Aziraphale shook his head and threw his hands up in a sort of dramatics that was usually more suited to Crowley’s tastes. “Yes, _yes_ , I know! I am an angel; you are a demon. I know, believe me, I know. I know you lot can’t love", his voice broke on the last word, making Crowley want to rip his own heart out and dunk it in holy water, "it’s not me it’s you, et cetera et cetera. Just…give me time, Crowley. Pl-please.”

“Aziraphale, I love you.” Crowley’s teeth nearly shook out of his skull at hearing himself say that; the audacity of not only daring to love the angel, but to admit it to him as well? If She were to smite him right in that second, he wouldn’t even fault her. He deserved it, and everything else.

“Don’t.” Now Aziraphale didn’t just sound hurt, or defeated, now he sounded _angry_ , furious even if his voice was still shaky, which made the pain flare up even higher in Crowley. As a last resort, he ripped his glasses off his face, flinging them to the side without a first or second thought, and strode over to the angel until their noses were nearly touching. _Like when we were at the hospital_ , they both thought in that moment, at the exact same time, unbeknownst to the other, of course. _I should have kissed him right there, when I had the chance, before it all went to shit, before it was too late_.

“Look into my eyes, Aziraphale. I love you, I have loved you for 6000 years, and probably before that, even, before I was even crafted by Her, my essence craved yours. Please, I’m begging you. I can get on my knees, if you like.” He was already on his way down, his skinny-jean-clad legs protesting quite heavily, but the angel caught him by the arm and pulled him up again. (There was a metaphor hiding in there, Crowley was sure of it.)

“Don’t be ridiculous” Aziraphale muttered, mostly annoyed but with a tiny smidgen of fondness nudging between the shapes of his words. “People will think we’re having a tiff.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Well…yes. You have some explaining to do.”

Crowley, while he was a highly intelligent being, usually, had a quite terrible short-term memory. So, even though he had promised to do just that only a few minutes ago, his next words weren’t a long and detailed explanation of exactly where he had gone wrong, but rather: “So do you! Really, trusting that mortal witch with something that important, what were you thinking?”

Aziraphale puffed his cheeks, now quite embarrassed, really, looking down at his impeccably manicured nails, and muttered: “Well, I mean…”

“You can feel love, for…You are literally _the_ specialist for feeling love in others! Or why didn’t you just ask me, angel?” Crowley asked, voice suddenly very small and almost dainty, even. “You could have come to me. Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, my dear. I just– It was cowardly, I know. But to think about confronting you and you refusing me…the thought alone broke my heart.”

“You’ve broken my heart before, Zira" Crowley confessed, shifting his eyes away from the angel to avoid another rejection, however that might look like now. "Many times.”

Aziraphale huffed an unhappy breath, rubbing his face with his palms for a moment before letting them drop heavily at his sides, a determined and deeply regretful expression in his eyes. “I know, I know that now, and maybe I even knew it then. I was…terrified, of what they might do to you. To us.”

“They’re not here anymore” Crowley reminded him quietly. “You can do anything you want.” The demon shuffled half a step closer to Aziraphale, even if he didn’t dare reach out to touch him just yet.

“Anything?”

Crowley, against his usual sauntering nature, stood stock-still, barely daring to breathe, or blink, or think. “Of course" he whispered.

Aziraphale let out a shuddering, painful-sounding breath, and stepped even closer to Crowley. When he reached out to cup the demon’s face in his soft hands, his serpentine eyes fluttered shut almost by reflex, and Crowley let out a sigh when he felt the angel’s warm skin caressing his own like he was something precious.

Gently nudging the demon’s head down, Aziraphale leaned in and kissed his forehead; a benediction of its own kind.

“I love you. And I’m sorry” he whispered against Crowley’s skin, lips brushing it with every sound, “that I doubted you. That I was scared. I should have known.”

“Yes, you bloody should have” Crowley replied through a thick layer of tears which he would deny for the next few decades to come.

Aziraphale stroked the demon’s cheek soothingly, a small and impossibly fond smile on his lips, but a bit of a frown still persisted on his face. “I’m still not sure why it didn’t work, though. She saw everybody else’s fine, apparently. So do I, usually.”

“Maybe it’s demonic, maybe my aura works differently” Crowley shrugged, not quite keen on discussing how much hurt this misunderstanding had caused just now; the haunted look in Aziraphale's eyes when Crowley had told him he loved him and and the angel thought it was just a ploy or something along those lines was still too fresh in his mind. “But for now, I don’t want to hear anything about auras anymore. Let me take you out, angel.”

At this, Aziraphale immediately perked up, even if he loathed the idea to leave this moment just yet. “And where to? The Ritz?”

Crowley chuckled; for once, the Ritz just wouldn’t do. “I was thinking about my place. The ambiance is supposed to be stunning, you know.”

“Mmm” Aziraphale hummed amusedly, stroking a playful fingertip along the demon’s jaw and relishing in the way it made him shudder.

“I heard the plants are absolutely exquisite.”

“They better be” Crowley growled playfully against the angel’s lips before finally – _finally_ – claiming them with his own.

Aziraphale melted in the demon’s arms instantly – it was a mutual melting, really, like a soft-serve in St James' Park on a hot July day. Crowley kissed Aziraphale gently - timidly, almost - but very thoroughly, like this might be the one and only chance he’d be getting; even if he was slowly daring to get used to the thought that this might be a recurring thing that they would now throw in the mix of their activities. Going for lunch, drinking at the bookshop, sitting in the Bentley together while Aziraphale pretended to be horrified by Crowley’s driving style, kissing…It sounded quite phenomenal, if Crowley were to be the judge.

Meanwhile, the angel was quite interested in getting more closely acquainted with the lines and angles of Crowley’s body, with one hand still cupping the demon’s sharp jaw while the other ran up his spine below his black jacket – just scandalous enough for a Sunday afternoon to get the Tadfield chatter going for at least two weeks.

If Anathema had been there, she still would have wondered about the lack of feelings surrounding Crowley, but really, should she feel inclined, she could always go up into space and watch the lovely dark purple mist spread over the United Kingdom like a galaxy, down over the entire European continent, lighting up with a warm glow when Aziraphale’s lips had met Crowley’s.

Cause really, it had never been about looking closely, but about seeing the big picture.

“Take me home, then” Aziraphale spoke softly, leaning his forehead against Crowley’s as they caught their breaths, after about an eternity of getting lost in each other.

And Crowley did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forehead kisses are severely underrated don't @ me


End file.
